Wednesday, 25 April 2012

Vintage Children's Illustrations

Hello,

I loved books as a child, I was addicted! Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, any author, it didn't matter.When I had my own children I was determined that they too would be avid readers and not be computer game junkies. They have a large amount of books between them and we go to the library every couple of weeks. Now I don't buy books brand new always as I would have to remortgage the house to pay for the books as they can be quite expensive.I buy a lot of them in charity/second hand shops, and I love some of the illustrations.

Here is an Enid Blyton from the 1970s. Mind you the one thing you have to watch out for with the Enid Blyton books is a lot of them were "updated" to political correctness in the last decade. I read two books from the same set recently, one was brand new and one was from the 80s, the names of the characters had even changed. One of the first books I can remember was the Enchanted Wood or the Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton and my daughter (age 6) was just as enthralled by them so a good story never goes out of fashion!

On a recent trip to Kilkenny we popped into the wonderful bookstore (its on a side street at the side of the Superquinn shopping centre, you head out as if heading to the car park and go down the hill a few yards and you'll see it). It is a great place to buy books for children as they have brand new books for 50c, books for 1 and 2 euro upwards. You can pick up a lot for twenty euro. Here is one I couldn't resist for its illustrations, I think I'll have to frame it: